


Spotlight

by chshrkitten



Category: Le Fantôme de l'Opéra | Phantom of the Opera & Related Fandoms, Phantom of the Opera (2004), Phantom of the Opera - Lloyd Webber
Genre: Carlotta doing emotional labor partly out of caring and partly for the ego boost, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, if that counts as h/c
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-17
Updated: 2018-09-17
Packaged: 2019-07-13 09:14:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16014863
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chshrkitten/pseuds/chshrkitten
Summary: From the dialogue prompts: “You don’t have to stay” / “I just really need to have you here right now.”Erik isn’t good at accepting comfort, and Carlotta isn’t good at offering it. They figure it out.





	Spotlight

**Author's Note:**

> I did my research, and I know that Paris winters aren’t actually THAT cold, but let me have my artistic license.
> 
> I can explain the ‘verse and the pre-existing relationship if anyone wants, but this is just meaningless character exploration with a side of hurt/comfort, so I don’t think there’s anything you really need to come into it knowing.

The wind was cold and strong up on the roof of the Garnier, which was too unsurprising for Carlotta to really be bothered by it. After all, it was November, and Paris had been hovering on the edge of winter for the last month. She was a little more annoyed at herself— she had rushed up here too quickly to remember her hat, and her ears were already freezing. She knew that it was stupid to hurry up here after that man like this. But after the incident during rehearsal— well, she’d never seen the self-professed ‘ghost’ look that frightened before. Carlotta wasn’t sure if she was concerned about him, or if she just wanted the chance to see _le fantôme_ vulnerable. 

Sometimes, she thought, it can be better not to examine one’s own motives. 

Erik crouched almost at the edge of the roof, his form a black stain against the golden moldings. He was close enough to the edge that if he was anyone else Carlotta would have been worried about him keeping his balance. Instead, she mostly just felt tired. Of course he had to choose the most inconvenient place possible to sulk. “Erik. Ghost. Whoever you are today.” Her voice was brisk, and came out harsher than she had intended.

She didn’t really expect him to hear her over the wind, but clearly he had, because she could see his shoulders tighten even further in on themselves, like a drawstring being pulled. “La Diva.”

Carlotta knew that a lot of people disliked her already, even though she’d only been at the Garnier for two seasons, but none of them had ever managed to make her job title sound as sarcastic as he could (even though the effect was somewhat ruined by him shaking). She was almost amused by it. “Are you planning to spend the night out here, Ghost?”

“Not that you should require an explanation, but I’m planning to return in time to supervise the rest of rehearsal.”

 _Supervise my ass, and anyway…_ “rehearsal ended a few minutes ago. Obviously that’s why I was able to leave to come up here.”

“Oh.” He was only momentarily thrown. “And here I thought they’d just jumped at the chance to get rid of you.” 

“Maybe I did walk into that one.” Carlotta took a few brisk steps closer, heels clicking on the ground. She wanted to be offended, on some level, and she knew she’d be justified in it if she was. But being upset by Erik’s words felt a little too much like taking the weather personally; she had known he would be in that mood where every sentence out of his mouth would be an insult, and she couldn’t even be as certain as she usually was that he didn’t mean them. She had chosen to come up here anyway. That said, no reason to start acting like a saint now, and so: “Still, fuck you at any rate.”

“Your sentiments are returned in full. Did you come up here to say that, or do you require something?”

Carlotta couldn’t think how to answer that question, and then remembered that she didn’t actually have to. “Have you been hiding up here for the last hour?”

“I’m not hiding, and I can do what I please.” But there was no real bite to his words, so Carlotta finished closing the short distance between them. She stood over him and stared out at the Paris skyline. He was hunched down, crouching under the railing like he thought it would protect him from a danger that didn’t actually exist. Carlotta wanted to put her hand on his cheek, wanted to comfort him, wanted the bastard to need her— wanted to stop being such a pathetic little girl about all this. Fuck him.

But she didn’t leave.

Erik was silent, and then he wasn’t. “You don’t have to stay.” The words came out in one shuddering breath. He had spoken so quickly that it took Carlotta a second to figure out what he said.

Then she snorted. “Thanks for the permission.” She crouched down, and scooted awkwardly forward so that she sat next to him, gripping tight to the safety rail he had crawled half-under. “Are you trying to fall off or something?”

“To get away from you? I should consider the option.” Erik’s voice was half-hearted, and it sounded rough-edged in that disgustingly vulnerable way Carlotta had only heard before from weepy drunk girls at three in the morning. She didn’t turn to go. 

“What happened to you in there?”

Silence. 

“I mean,” she pressed on, “you aren’t much of a ghost if you practically have hysterics just because a stagehand saw you.” 

“It isn’t that he saw me!” Erik snapped, still not looking at her. “It’s that the whole damn company did, alright?”

Carlotta waited, knowing that Erik would continue if she gave him a large enough silence to fill. 

“He shined a _spotlight_ up there.” He whispered pathetically. “They could’ve….” he trailed off, not specifying what they could have done to him.

“What, can’t handle being the one onstage?” She laughed. He didn’t. “Look, Reyes made them turn the spotlight back on the stage after about a second. Not that it matters, but I doubt anyone caught more than a glimpse of you.” She pressed a hand awkwardly to his shoulder. He flinched briefly, but then leaned into the touch. Something like victory swelled in her chest when she heard him exhale, long and slow and still shaking, but less so now. 

Carlotta had never understood why so many women wasted their time with tragic men, even women who could do so much better. After meeting Erik, she had begun to understand the appeal. There was something irrefutably fascinating about figuring out what would make him break out of his pride enough to rely on her, and she had to admit that it was….nice, to be relied on. She couldn’t remember ever being considered a source of comfort before. 

She wasn’t in love with him. But she had to admit, there was something in her that liked the man. 

“Anyway,” Carlotta concluded after the long pause, “there’s no reason they won’t still believe in the whole ghost rigamarole, so you don’t need to panic or— or do whatever this is supposed to be.”

Erik hunched in on himself more, if that was possible, but didn’t move away from her hand on his shoulder, so she kept it where it was. 

“Do you think so?” He asked, after such a long pause that it took a moment for Carlotta to place what he was referring to. When she did, she hummed an affirmative.

“Alright.” He said quietly. “Alright.” She could feel his shoulder muscles easing slightly, beneath the shadow of his cloak. She wondered where he found these clothes; certainly he could not go and buy them. It occurred to her how little she knew about him; he had simply appeared at the Opera one day, as though he had risen fully-formed from the shadows of the rumored catacombs beneath the Garnier. Carlotta shivered, as she thought: Maybe he did. 

As if on cue, Erik shivered, and she glanced down to see that he was twisting his gloved hands together to warm them.

_No, girl. Don’t be silly, whether he’s a man or a boy might be debatable at times, but he’s certainly human. You’re just being superstitious again..._

“Giudicelli.”

“Le Fantôme.” She answered sardonically.

“Why….” he took in a deep breath, and hesitated. She did not like the careful tone in his voice. “Why are you here?”

She bristled. “What, you want me to leave?”

“No!” He answered so hastily that she hadn’t finished asking by the time he had finished his response. “I mean,” he added, clearly trying so hard to seem casual, “I don’t mind terribly, having you up here.”

 _Oh, you are not getting off that easy._ And so Carlotta pushed him. Maybe she shouldn’t, when he was still calming down, but she couldn’t help it. Sometimes needling him was like poking a bruise, like sucking blood from a split in her lip even when she knew it would stop the cut from closing. Carlotta had always been susceptible to that kind of bad habit. “Well, I’m afraid I have other things to do, so—“

“Please.” There it is. Under the shadow of his mask, Carlotta could his lips tighten in annoyance, in embarrassment. But he had said it. 

“What do you need right now?” She had meant to use the question to push him farther, make him admit more, but it came out more gently than she could help, like she was trying to comfort him or something. _I suppose I am. Someone should, and I’m not sure who else..._

“Maybe I don’t—“

“You’re wasting our time.” She snapped.

“Alright.” Erik visibly gathered himself. “Fine. I.” He broke off. She waited. When he continued, his voice was audibly quieter. “I just really need to have you here right now.”

 _Was that so hard?_ She passed her hand gently across his back, smoothing out the lines of the fabric. 

He let out a sharp breath at her gesture. Carlotta knew from experience that he hadn’t been expecting her to stay. He never did. 

_That’s probably for the best._ She thought. _How attached do I want someone like him to get?_

Head still hunched down into his cloak, Erik mumbled something incomprehensible.

“Enunciate.” She poked him to emphasize the second syllable of the word, and he coughed what might have been a laugh.

“I said, you’re…” under her hand, his shoulders moved in a shrug. “I mean, you’re good, Guidicelli. A good….” he trailed off, making a complex and illegible gesture in place of the second half of his sentence. 

“Don’t strain yourself.” She said dryly, tracing absentminded fingers up and down the seam of his cloak. “Nice to know you can try to be sweet sometimes.” 

Neither of them had much more to say to each other, so they just sat and stared off together into the dimming sky, as the light swung onwards towards evening.

**Author's Note:**

> You know that moment where a story has been sitting in your google drive for over a month, and you’re still not sure it’s been edited enough or not, but you decide to post it anyway because it had good bones and also you haven’t posted anything in a while? Yeah, this was that.
> 
> Let me know what you thought!


End file.
